Jing Yan Huang

Selective bonding of pyrazine to silicon(100)-2×1 surfaces: The role of nitrogen atoms

The covalent binding of pyrazine on Si(100) have been investigated using high-resolution electron energy loss spectroscopy (HREELS) and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Experimental results clearly suggest that the attachment occurs exclusively through the bonding of the two para-nitrogen atoms with the surface without the involvement of the carbon atoms, as evidenced from the retention of the (sp2) C-H stretching mode in HREELS and a significant down shift of 1.6 eV in the binding energy of N 1s. The binding mechanism for pyrazine on Si(100) demonstrates that reaction channels for heteroatomic aromatic molecules are strongly dependent on the electronic properties of the constituent atoms.

Selective attachment of benzaldehyde on Si(100)-2×1: Structure, selectivity, and mechanism

The interaction of benzaldehyde with the Si(100) surface has been investigated as a model system for understanding the interaction of conjugated pi-electron systems with semiconductor surfaces. Vibrational features of chemisorbed benzaldehyde unambiguously demonstrate that the carbonyl group directly interacts with the Si surface dangling bonds, evidenced in the disappearance of the C=O stretching mode around 1713 cm(-1) coupled with the retention of all vibrational signatures of its phenyl ring. X-ray photoemission spectroscopy shows that both C 1s and O 1s binding energies of the carbonyl group display large downshifts by 1.9 and 1.3 eV, respectively. Vibrational and electronic results show that the covalent attachment of benzaldehyde on Si(100) occurs in a highly selective manner through the direct interaction of both C and O atoms of the carbonyl group with a Si=Si dimer to form a four-membered Si-C-O-Si ring at the interface, leaving a nearly unperturbed phenyl ring protruding into vacuum. This conclusion is further confirmed by the observation of a predominant protrusion for benzaldehyde adsorbed on Si(100)-2 x 1 in scanning tunneling microscopy experiments, consistent with the predication of density-functional theory calculation.